FRIEND OF THE FAMILY rather expect them to like a nice, glitter- ing name like Gold." Gay had laughed and offered her more to drink. I thought, from my van- tage point in Gay's bedroom, where I was sorting out all her jewelry on her bedspread-I must have been about ten-that her laugh was not so much with Peggy as at her. There was also my own parentage to consider. I was not only Gay Gibson's granddaughter, I was Simon Rose's daughter. I wonder now whether Peggy Gordon ever considered for one second that her words could hurt me, could hun my feelings. Doubtful. It probably didn't occur to her that I thought of myself as Jewish. She always fussed over me because I looked so much like a Gibson. I had "the Gibson L " upper .up. Gay was fond of her because they went back a long way, and had travelled to Reno together for their first divorces. By the time I was six I knew that the T ruckee River ran through Reno, where you went for a divorce. You stood on a bridge and threw your now meanIngless wedding ring into that river. Once, when I was little, the people next door, the Antlers, had a terrible ar- gument, and Mrs. Antler ran out the front door and threw her wedding ring into the bushes in front of their house. I saw her do it. That night I watched from my bedroom window as Mr. and Mrs. Antler together hunted through those bushes, on their knees, Wlth flash- lights, for hours. So, Benedict, where I come from there were a lot of wedding rings tossed around. Me, when I have a wedding ring, I don't intend to take it off Ever. Just so you know. Victor sidled into the courtyard just when the waiter was presenting us with menus as big as the bonnet of a small car. Victor joined us, and the waiter nearly knocked off Victor's reading glasses as he flourIshed another menu under his nose. We were each hidden from sight behind this menu flotilla. Ev- erything about this place was slightly oversi d. Perhaps that signifies luxury. I imagine that we looked, from above, like three giant moths poised for flight. T HE voice of Vict r insisted that I order the Truite au Bleu, the spe- aalty of the place. He ordered gray sole for Anne, who contributed no thoughts of her own about what she would like to eat. "I will take the steak," he said to the waiter-rather imperiously, I thought. Why did it bother me so? "I will take the steak." I have no toes, so I will not mere- ly have, as others do, but I will take. I sur- vived childhood at Auschwitz, so I can cheat on my wife and I will take the steak. The waiter plucked away the menus. I cannot begin to enumerate all the ways that I do not like this man. I do not like what Anne has become, is becoming, will become. A spinster with a special feeling for a certain flower stall. (Victor bought her flowers there once; she has taken me to see the particular shade of roses this vender sells, and I was made to admire them as if the very shade of pink signals the deep significance of it all.) A childless woman alone on holidays. A woman with a gray soul. Why did I expect that Anne would pay for this meal? In fact, in the end she did pick up the check, but not because Victor managed the simple maneuver of looking the other way. No, by the time the check came it was much more com- phcated than that. Our starters had been served, con- sumed, and cleared (duck-liver pâté and vegetable terrine, quite good, actually, though Victor had been unpleasant with the waiter's suggestion that he might like soup-thoughtless of the waiter not to realize that, having lived on ghastly soup in a concentration camp, Victor is greatly pained when soup possibilities arise in his present life) when another group was seated across from us. At this point Anne was seated be- tween Victor and me; when Victor was shown to our table, Anne had moved over nearer to me, either despite or in re- sponse to Victor's murmured, "Ah, I shall be a thorn between two roses." So we had got ourselves into the same con- figuration as at the beach. I thought I saw Victor looking uncomfortable, but I didn't think it was in response to any- thing said, as our conversation at that juncture was pointless and desultory, mostly about the food. The next time I turned my head Victor had disappeared. He had simply vanished. Anne looked quite disturbed. 'What happened to Victor?" I felt, for a brief moment, on the edge of hys- teria, like Ingrid Bergman in "Gaslight." I also had an absurd sense that Anne was about to launch into a complete 89 The best pet food is delivered to your home. We know you love your pet. That is why we have always had two straightforward commitments. 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